Clear Scraps blog hop

Hello all. Today all the designers are going to share some of the new releases Clear Scraps will show off at the upcoming CHA winter at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

If you happen to stumble upon my blog and want to see where fun started, hop on over here.

Our Love Story

my share today is a mini I made with the fun wavy acrylic album. I also used an acrylic arrow in the front of the book which I ran it on my embossing machine for the dot emboss design and painted pink on the edges.


I love how just the wavy edges of this book already helps you feel some fun and spontaneity even before you learn of the theme of the album. There's so many possibly themes you can do with it. With mine, I used a love theme.
For the front, I used some flowers to hide my adhesive and also a scallop trim from Cosmo Cricket.


I had some BoBunny papers that fit the bill and it had just the right sizes and amount of papers that will complete the book in a snap.


For the album, I wanted to show some of the Acrylic beauty so I painted the edges pink and cut my papers into 6" squares so you can see the clear aspect of the book in the edges.


Also added some flowers and journaling blocks on each page.


I left the book blank (no pictures and words) for the trade show but after I get this back, I'll fill it up some photos of me and hubby.


A few more flowers and papers and the back was finished off.

So there you have it. I'm the last one on the list of designers. From here you can go back to the Clear Scraps blog.

Make sure you comment on every DT's blog post and at the Clear Scraps blog to be in the running to win for a give away of one of the new cast acrylic products.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

Silverwood lake mini *Upsy Daisy Designs*

I'm looking outside my window and it's beautiful out there. Sunny with clear blue skies and there's snow on the ground. The only bummer is....it's sunny but it's a chilling 12 degrees. How can that be? Oh one of the many things I still need to get use to with Colorado.

Anyways this weather is reminding me of the beautiful and "warmer" weather California offered. This made me think of a family camping trip we did at Silverwood Lake. Here's a mini album I made of the trip using the Avalanche paper line from Upsy Daisy Designs.

Silverwood Lake
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Upsy Daisy Designs Avalanche paper has some great blocks for journaling and titles. I used one of these blocks as the foundation for the front of the book. I love the word "memories" on there and thought it was applicable for my theme.

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I also used rubons and brads from Upsy Daisy Designs.

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The construction of the mini is very simple. I cut out one 12x12 paper into 6x12 and folded it accordion style into 4x6". Then connected the two pieces to make one longer piece.

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After that I laid my photos onto the divided blocks and then added my papers and embellishments.

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I also used the "memories" stamp from "Note This". Also from Upsy Daisy Designs.

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I typed up my journaling into strips and spread it around the whole mini.

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I love this Vroom rubons.

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I closed up the mini with a simple paper clip.

So there you have it. Make sure you check out these and other products UDD offers here. And for more Daisy inspirations, check out the blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

Family's first sightseeing around the area

I'm taking a bit of a break with the crafty posts to share some photos of our sightseeing activity yesterday. Mitch didn't have work and since it was a Saturday we decided to go out and be "tourists".

One thing I love about living in Colorado Springs is how close we are to the mountains. I mean, the mountains is literally in our backyard. It took a mere 15 minutes to get out of the city and into roads like these....


We first explored the "Cave of the Winds".


Here are the kids in the front of the cave entrance. I told him to pose with the bear statue and first thing they did was hop on over it. Funny kids!


The cave was on the top of the mountain and they had a place where you can see down to the valley. If you don't know, I'm afraid of heights so to get this photo, I quickly stepped out of the viewing area, clicked the camera and went back inside the lounge.


The cave admission was a bit pricey but in our quest to be "tourists" today, we didn't mind it much. It was good though that we got a discount for Mitch since he was past military.


We were lucky that they allowed cameras (with flashes) inside the cave. There are bats inside the cave but the tour guide said that they were hibernating in a part of the cave where we won't see them so it's ok to use the camera flashes.


Some rock formations that I just couldn't pass taking a photo of.


Apparently when the cave started to become a tourist attraction (which was over 100 years ago) they would let people take stalactites home for souvenirs. The owners back then didn't know that it takes centuries for it to grow back. After learning of this, of course they stopped the practice and have protected the small stalactites growing. Look at these baby stalactites.


There were a lot of places/rooms we toured. Some were narrower and smaller than these. I even bumped my head at one point during the tour. Lesson learned....cannot take photos and tour caves at the same time.


Then after our cave tour we ate lunch at a nearby Wendy's and headed to downtown to visit the Pioneer's museum.


the admission was free so we were very happy about that.


inside they had a wing dedicated for WWll artifacts.


but most of the displays was about life in Colorado Springs in the beginning of it's being a city. These old books were donated by one of the oldest residents in the city.


there were also an area where paintings were displayed depicting the beautiful landscape of the area. I was attracted to this painting cause it looked very unique. It looked cartoonish at first glance.


I love looking at these plates. Makes me wanna find a souvenir shop and get me a Colorado Springs plate to display in my home.


The building that they used for the museum was actually an old court house. They kept one of the court rooms in tact and it was cool being in it. I'm in awe at how much detail in architecture (both inside and outside) was put into this building. It's so awesome.


There were two levels open to visitors in the museum. To get to the upper level you have a choice to either use the stairs or go on one of these old time elevators. It was cool riding on it.


They also had an area where they displayed medicine artifacts during the start of the city. I was very impressed how they got this lot of pharmacy cabinets full of prescriptions they used back then. Very interesting.


On the other side of these cabinets was a ceiling to floor mirror. We took this photo, just for fun.


Here's some photos of us outside the museum




and then after that we went to the old Train Depot downtown. They made the depot into a restaurant but across the street was a park where they placed this...




Mitch read the information that went along with the display and according to it, this train ran for 50 years.





and then on our way home, here's what I glanced upon. It's snowing today so you can see the dark clouds coming upon us but on the other side of the mountains, the sun was setting and it's rays looks like a burst of fire on the other side of the range. So cool.


So there you have it. A glimpse of our new community.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

December Crazy daisy extra projectss

Happy Saturday. Here's my finall installment of the Crazy Daisy December kit marathon posts.

Extra projects for the month of December

Our showcase of projects for the December Crazy Daisy December kit won't be complete without some extra projects. This month it was a card and an altered paper bag...

Christmas bag


The big Christmas chipboard tag was the main inspiration for this project. I love how the tag sums up all that I want to share to the recipient of this bag and its contents.
I used mostly Crate Paper products here although I added the ticket stub die cuts from MME for added interest.





Happy Holidays card


Because I had leftovers of the border stickers, I used them up to dress up this card.
Can you believe that this card has no pattern paper on it? Yes all these goodies are either stickers or chipboard.



Thanks for stopping by. Check this kit and all the other kits, Crazy Daisy has in store here.

Till next time,
Grace

December Crazy daisy mini

as promised here's my take on the mini album that is part of the Crazy Daisy main kit....

December daily mini


I know I'm a bit late making a december daily album but the die cut of the december month from MME was irresistable that I decided to use that as my foundation idea for this mini.
I love the mini for this month. Chipboard minis are always a great book to alter in my "books", no pun intended.
Anyways, I covered the front and back sides of the book completely with pattern papers but opted to just cover 75% of the inside pages. The holes of the book are not your typical circle ones and I thought if I had to make those holes for each page, it'll take me a long time. With this process, I was also able to use up the border stickers and ribbons in the kit.



I used a simple design for all the inside pages and added cardstock where I'll be able to add photos when I get around to it.
The accents/embellishments that came in the kit were perfect to bring this book to life. I love all the chipboard and die cut accents as well as the stickers. There's something for each page including journaling blocks.
For the front and back of the page, I used some of the Basic Grey rubons and other fun accents.

thanks for stopping by and because the kit has so much goodies in it, I was able to make two extra projects with it. I'll show you guys what I made tomorrow.

Till next time,
Grace

December Crazy daisy kit layouts *photo heavy*

I know you are probably wondering why the heck I'm sharing this when it's already the 6th of January?! Well with the move and getting things forwarded to the new address I actually didn't get the kit till four days ago. I'm not blaming USPS (ok well maybe a litte) for the delay but we all know that when the Holidays arrive, things get really busy.

So without any further unnecessary blabbing from me, here's my layouts...

Precious Moments

My photo has some white space on the top. I didn't want to crop it because it'll make my only photo looks so small in connection with the whole size of the page, I just covered parts of my photo with paper and border strips.
I also used the red as my main color in the page which coordinated very well with the color of the shirts of my kids in the photo.


The kit had some fun heart and red rubons from Basic Grey in it so I used that as accents to this precious page about my kid's being good with each other.
I also used the fabric included in the kit. I used that as my main pattern stitching it dead center on the page.



Christmas Sweets

This page focuses on our candy making activity two years ago. I was too late in purchasing a Gingerbread house kit that all the stores I went to have all ran out of stock of it. Not to damper my kid's Christmas treat making plans, I bought this chocolate candy making treat and this is what we came up with.


I used some papers from Crate paper here with one using as a strip to create a border around the page. This grounded my page. I also added chipboard buttons on each corner.
I scored an old typewriter from Mitch's shop when they closed and I've been using it like crazy lately in all of my projects. I love how easy it is to type up my journaling without the fuss of computers and printers. The only draw back, I need to make sure my spellings are always correct on the first type.




Visiting with the Big Man!

This was my first page to make with the kit. I love the Crate Paper and couldn't resist using it as my main background. Because the paper's already loaded with fun designs, I chose to go a little simple with the rest of the design. I didn't want the page to look too much. I did however wanted to add strips of paper, border stickers and die cuts to the bottom of the page, so I used a craft knife and cut some slits through the bottom of the Christmas tree pattern so slide my strips of papers into it. I used one of these strips as a place to house my journaling as well.


The pictures in this page is another example of how grateful I am for people that gives me copies of pictures they took of my kids/family. In this one, a sister in our ward took all the photos of each kid that came and visited with Santa during a church party. She then printed them off and gave to the parents. What a lovely service, don't you agree?!



All I want for Christmas

This is my two page spread for the month. Because I am way behind on printing photos, I was very grateful when I found these photos of a Christmas get together we had at my mom's. She was kind enough to order extras of her prints to give to me. Gotta love that!
I used the more vintage inspired papers from My Mind's Eye for this page plus the die cuts too.
I also added the ribbons with the sayings on them and a chipboard tree from the Crate Paper pack.
To add some design to my blocks of pattern paper, I cut the sides with a special postage attachment for my paper trimmer. This method gave it more personality with just adding a different cut to the sides.





A Prized Possession

Although the kit is mainly themed for December events, I loved the reds in it that I thought of making a layout about my love for designer bags especially with a bag that my Aunt gave me as a gift.
I used the back of one of the Jillibean soup paper as my background. I love the Kraft cardstock look for this page. I also used the greens and red here but only used the reds to a minimum so it won't look to Christmasy.





thanks for looking and make sure you stop by tomorrow. I have the mini to share.
To learn more about this and other Crazy Daisy kits, click here.

Till next time,
Grace